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Free Printable Debt Thermometer

Color in the tube as your total debt falls. Every mark is ten percent of the way there.

The debt thermometer is the oldest trick in personal finance and it still works: a tube with your total debt written in the bulb, and a marker to color it in every time you pay some off. It works because it is visible. A spreadsheet lives in a folder; a thermometer lives on the fridge, where you and everyone in the house walk past it a dozen times a day.

This version has ten marks up the side, one for every ten percent of the total, with a line beside each to write the dollar amount paid at that point. There is a small payment log on the right so you can note each payment before you color, and boxes for the start date and the debt-free goal.

It is meant to be filled in by hand, so the bulb is left white for your number and the tube is empty. Choose a color you like; you will be looking at it for a while. When the tube is full, keep the sheet. Very few people throw away a finished thermometer.

Debt Thermometer: page one of the free printable PDF

Download the free PDF

Free, no signup, no email address. Pick your paper size; every version is one page and prints on any home printer.

Download PDF (US Letter) A4 Ink saver

The ink saver version is the same sheet in black and gray for cheap printing. Print at 100 percent, not "fit to page", so the rows stay a comfortable height for handwriting.

Rather have the numbers filled in for you? Undebt.it members can open Printables in the member menu and get this sheet built from their own plan. A free Undebt.it account is all it takes.

What it looks like filled in

Filled in from a sample plan with $24,520 of debt: the total sits in the bulb, the ten marks are worked out ($2,452 a step), the first three $850 payments are logged on the right and the tube is colored up to the $2,550 paid so far. On the blank version you write all of that in yourself.

Debt Thermometer filled in with sample data

Open the filled-in example as a PDF. The download buttons above give you the blank sheet.

How to use it

  1. Add up every debt (the debt tracker is the page for that) and write the total in the bulb.
  2. Fill in the ten marks. Divide the total by ten. The 10% line is that number, 20% is twice it, and so on up to the total at the top.
  3. Log each payment in the table on the right and update the "paid so far" column.
  4. Color the tube up to the amount you have paid so far. Each time you cross a mark, stop and notice it.

Tips that make it stick

  • Put the total in the bulb even if it scares you.The thermometer only works if the whole distance is on the page.
  • Color from the bottom up in one color.Use a different color for windfall payments so you can see where the jumps came from.
  • One thermometer for the whole pile, or one per debt for a snowball.A small debt fills fast, and that first full tube is a real moment.
Debt-Free Summit filled in with sample data Debt-Free Summit One hundred triangles from the base to the peak. Color your way up and plant the flag on the summit.
Debt-Free Chart filled in with sample data Debt-Free Chart One hundred squares, each one percent of your debt. Color one in every time you pay one off.
Debt Tracker filled in with sample data Debt Tracker List every debt on one page, then log each balance month by month.

See all the free printables

Common questions

Up, as you pay. The bottom of the tube is zero paid and the top is the full total, so the tube fills toward the goal. Filling something up feels like progress in a way that emptying it does not, which is the whole trick of the thermometer.

Use the total on the day you start and measure payments against it. Interest means you will pay a little more than the bulb says before the last balance hits zero; when that happens, color right to the top anyway and write the extra beside it. The thermometer is a motivation tool, not an accounting one.

Both work. One for the total gives the big picture. One per debt suits the snowball method, because the smallest debt's tube fills quickly and gives you an early finish to celebrate. Some people keep a big one for the total and a small stack for the individual debts.

Yes. Undebt.it members can open Printables in the member menu and download a thermometer built from their own plan: the starting total in the bulb (the sum of their highest balances), the ten marks already calculated and the tube colored up to what they have paid so far. The blank version on this page only needs a pen and a calculator.